Bagwell named Collegiate Chorale music director

NEW YORK 
Conductor James Bagwell has been appointed music director of New York City's renowned Collegiate Chorale, succeeding the late Robert Bass.

Bagwell has been music director of the May Festival Youth Choir in Cincinnati for 11 seasons and has been the Bard Music Festival's director of choruses since 2003. He is principal guest conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra and has worked with choruses performing with the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Mostly Mozart Festival.

He has been director of the music program at Bard since 2000.

Bass was the Collegiate Chorale's music director since 1980. He died in August 2008.

The chorale was founded in 1941 by Robert Shaw and took its name from its first rehearsal space, the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan.